Honoring Milton Friedman

I have a piece in the IDS about the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman Institute and what this means for intellectual thought and free speech. Read it all here.

I only get around 500 words to make a compelling point and I readily admit I often don’t do a good job. Particularly with this column, I wanted to point out two things, but couldn’t due to lack of space. First, Friedman’s ideology really highlighted the deep relationship between free market policies and poor human rights. Capitalism, as conceptualized by libertarians, relies on a societal order that routinely degrades and devalues human beings. This plays itself out in very ugly ways, particularly in developing countries, where we often see this weird nexus of colonialism, racism and capitalism. One of the more prominent examples that comes to mind is that of Puerto Rico. From around the early 20th Century, American corporations and other cartels moved their operations to the island. This created various job opportunities, especially for women. However, rising expenses forced many of these corporations to move their operations to even cheaper locales. So, now P.R. had this sizeable population that was unemployed. Coinciding with rising unemployment was Government propaganda (sanctioned by the U.S.) about “overpopulation” and “population control.” Between the 1930s and the 1970s, approximately 1/3rd of Puerto Rico’s women had been sterilized, the highest rate in the world. P.R. is one of those rare instances where we can witness the effect that capitalism has on developing areas. I recommend watching, La Operacion, if you’re interested in learning more about this topic.

My second point is that in many ways, Iraq was supposed to be the second coming of the Chilean “miracle.” Libertarians like Friedman supported the invasion because they saw it as a laboratory for laissez faire economics. Not surprisingly, the country’s attempts at embracing Friedman’s theories have been disastrous, leaving us to question the validity of free-market theories. In light of this and the financial bailout- which was caused by deregulation, Friedman’s pet cause- it seems ridiculous to honor a man whose writings formed the very basis for the mess we’re in.

-Indira